Living in Canada has taught me that moving to another country is not just about learning a new language, finding your favorite grocery store, or getting used to the weather. 🍁
Sometimes the biggest adjustment is learning to stop measuring your new home against the place you came from.
I did not understand that when I first arrived. I understand it much better now.
I Grew Up in Busan, Where Life Rarely Felt Slow
I was born and raised in Busan, one of South Korea’s biggest cities.
My memories of city life are full of movement.
People walking quickly.
Busy streets.
Apartment buildings.
Crowded commercial areas.
Buses arriving and leaving.
Children moving from school to academies and then to another activity.
There was always somewhere to go and something that needed to be done.
That pace felt completely normal to me because it was the only normal I knew.
Even something as ordinary as getting around with a stroller could feel like a small mission in the crowded urban areas I was familiar with. You learned to plan around stairs, people, narrow spaces, traffic, and whatever obstacle appeared next.
Education had a similar feeling.
I grew up seeing how seriously many Korean families took academics. Parents cared about grades, schools, after-school programs, English education, and what other children were already learning.
Preparation started early, and comparison could start even earlier.
I did not think of those things as particularly Korean when I was younger.
They were simply life.
It took moving abroad for me to realize how much the environment I grew up in had shaped what I considered normal.
When I First Moved to Canada, I Compared Everything With Korea
I wish I could say that I arrived in Canada with an open mind and immediately appreciated every cultural difference.
I didn’t. 😅
For a while, my internal commentary sounded more like this:
Why does this take so long?
Why can’t I get this done today?
Why is the service different?
In Korea, this would have been faster.
That habit became especially strong during pregnancy.
Pregnancy already made me more sensitive and anxious than usual. When I needed something related to medical care, appointments, services, or paperwork, I wanted clarity and speed.
Korea had trained me to expect many things quickly.
Canada did not always work that way.
At the time, I often interpreted different as worse.
If something took longer than I expected, I compared it with Korea.
If a service felt less convenient, I compared it with Korea.
If I missed something familiar, suddenly Korea seemed to do absolutely everything better.
Looking back, I think that reaction was partly cultural adjustment and partly the emotional stage of life I was in.
I was trying to build a new life while pregnant, away from everything that had once felt automatic.
Of course I noticed every inconvenience.
The Hardest Adjustment Was Not Canada. It Was My Expectations
There is something strange about moving abroad.
At first, you compare the best things from your old country with the most frustrating things in your new one.
You remember Korea’s fast delivery.
Fast medical appointments.
Late-night restaurants.
Convenient shopping.
Efficient services.
You do not necessarily remember the parts that exhausted you.
Then, when Canada frustrates you, you notice only the inconvenience.
It is not exactly a fair comparison.
I eventually realized I was asking the wrong question.
Instead of:
“Why doesn’t Canada do this like Korea?”
I started asking:
“Why does life work differently here, and is there anything about that difference I actually like?”
That question changed a lot for me.
My First Impression vs. What I See Now
| Part of Life | What I Noticed First | What I Appreciate More Now |
|---|---|---|
| Service | Things sometimes felt slower | I became less obsessed with everything happening immediately |
| Parenting | Parents seemed surprisingly relaxed | Children often have more room to explore and try |
| Education | It looked less academically intense | I appreciate the space for social and personal development |
| Public spaces | Cities felt less dense than Busan | Parks and open spaces became part of our normal family life |
| Transit with kids | I expected travelling with a child to be stressful | Family mobility can be easier than I expected |
| Multiculturalism | So many languages and backgrounds felt new | My everyday world has become much broader |
| Lifestyle | The pace occasionally frustrated me | I now value having more breathing room |
None of this means I suddenly think one country does everything better.
I still miss Korean convenience.
I still get impatient.
But now my comparison is much more balanced.
Raising a Child Changed the Way I Saw Canada 👩👦
I probably would not understand some of Canada’s strengths in the same way if I had not become a mother here.
Before having a child, a park was a park.
A wide sidewalk was just a sidewalk.
An accessible bus was just transportation.
Now those things can decide whether an ordinary afternoon feels easy or exhausting.
One of my biggest surprises was simply how normal it felt to take a child out into everyday public life.
I had grown up expecting that moving around a busy city with a stroller required strategy.
Here, I found myself noticing ramps, elevators, wide walking paths, parks, libraries, playgrounds, community centres, and other spaces where families were clearly expected to show up with children.
Metro Vancouver’s TransLink, for example, has specific guidance for travelling with strollers, including stroller size rules and the option to ask a bus driver for the ramp.
That may sound like a tiny detail.
To a parent pushing a stroller, it is not tiny.
A city feels different when bringing your child with you does not automatically feel like an inconvenience to everyone else.
Canadian Parenting Culture Was Another Surprise
Canadian parents absolutely care about their children.
They care about education.
They sign their children up for activities.
They worry about schools.
They compare sometimes too.
Parents are parents everywhere.
But what surprised me was that, in my experience, the pressure surrounding young children often feels different from what I remember growing up around in Korea.
There seems to be a little more room for:
play,
sports,
social development,
outdoor time,
personal interests,
and simply being young.
That does not mean Canadian education is academically weak or that families are not ambitious.
The difference I notice is more about when pressure begins and how much of childhood becomes organized around academic competition.
Education in BC Made Me Think Differently About School 🎒
Now that my own child is approaching kindergarten age, this part feels much more personal.
Of course I want him to learn.
I care about his numbers, letters, language, behaviour, routines, and school readiness.
The Korean mom in me is alive and well.
Sometimes maybe very well. 😂
But I also do not want him entering school already feeling that childhood is a competition he needs to win.
One thing I appreciate about British Columbia’s education philosophy is that academics are not described as the entire purpose of learning.
BC’s official Core Competencies include Communication, Thinking, and Personal and Social competencies, alongside literacy and numeracy foundations.
As a parent, I like that idea.
Can my child communicate?
Can he solve problems?
Can he understand other people?
Can he gradually take responsibility for himself?
Can he think rather than simply memorize?
Those questions matter to me too.
The Education Balance I Want for My Own Child
I have not suddenly become completely relaxed about education.
That would not be believable.
I still want structure.
I still believe children benefit from practice and good habits.
And if my son needs help in an area, I am not going to say, “Just be free!” and hope mathematics sorts itself out.
But I want to leave some room around the academics.
I want him prepared, but I do not want him permanently pressured.
That distinction has become increasingly important to me.
Canada Let Me Meet the World Without Leaving My Neighborhood 🌏
Another part of life here that became more meaningful over time is multiculturalism.
At first, diversity was simply something I noticed.
Different languages.
Different accents.
Different foods.
Different holidays.
Different clothing.
Different family traditions.
After years of being surrounded by it, I see it differently.
The real value is not that diversity looks interesting.
It is that regular interaction with people who grew up differently can quietly widen your thinking.
You hear how another family celebrates a birthday.
You learn what another mother cooks when her child is sick.
You discover that something considered polite in one culture can feel strange in another.
You realize your own “normal” is only one version of normal.
According to Statistics Canada’s immigration and ethnocultural diversity data, immigrants represented 23.0% of Canada’s population in the 2021 Census, or more than 8.3 million people.
Those numbers are large.
But the part I remember is much smaller.
A conversation at a playground.
Another parent’s story.
A food I had never tried.
Someone telling me how childhood worked in their country.
Canada made the world feel less far away.
I Started Appreciating Ordinary Nature More 🌲
Coming from a large city, I used to think of enjoying nature as something that required making a plan.
You went somewhere to see it.
Here, nature became much more ordinary.
A neighborhood walk can include trees, water, birds, and open space.
A weekend does not necessarily require a complicated schedule.
Sometimes we just go outside.
That simplicity has become one of my favorite parts of family life.
I especially notice it now as a parent.
Children can spend an impressive amount of time doing absolutely nothing sophisticated.
A stick becomes interesting.
A puddle becomes an activity.
A hill somehow needs to be climbed seventeen times.
Adults tend to underestimate how little children sometimes need in order to have a good day.
Canada helped remind me of that.
Summer Taught Me Why Canadians Suddenly Disappear Outside ☀️
When I first noticed how seriously people treated summer, I found it slightly amusing.
The weather becomes beautiful and suddenly everyone is outside.
Camping.
Barbecuing.
Cycling.
Walking.
Going to lakes.
Sitting on patios.
Taking road trips.
Planning weekends like warm weather has an expiration date.
Then I experienced enough Canadian winters.
Now I understand.
Completely.
There is something about a long bright summer evening here that makes you feel slightly guilty if you stay inside.
And I actually love that attitude.
When a beautiful season is limited, people learn not to waste it.
Work-Life Boundaries Also Felt Different
Another cultural difference I gradually noticed was the relationship between work and personal life.
Again, this varies enormously by job, workplace, industry, and family.
I do not believe every Canadian finishes work at 5 p.m. and immediately enters a stress-free lifestyle.
That country does not exist.
But compared with the work culture I grew up watching, I noticed more willingness to acknowledge that people have lives outside work.
They get sick.
Their children get sick.
Families have emergencies.
People need time away.
British Columbia’s employment standards, for example, currently provide eligible employees with five paid sick days and three unpaid sick days per calendar year after 90 days of employment.
That does not remove workplace stress.
But culturally, I appreciate the basic idea behind it:
A worker is still a human being after they enter the workplace.
Some Things Still Frustrate Me—and That Is Okay
Getting used to Canada did not magically make every frustration disappear.
There are still days when I miss Korea’s speed.
There are still situations where I wish a service worked faster.
And there are parts of the medical system that can still test my patience, especially because my expectations were formed in a very different healthcare environment.
I do not think appreciating a country requires pretending those frustrations do not exist.
That was another lesson I had to learn.
At first, I felt like there were only two choices:
“Canada is amazing.”
or
“Korea does this better.”
Now I am comfortable saying both countries have things I admire and things that make me sigh.
Sometimes loudly.
That is a much healthier way for me to think about immigration.
I Also Had to Adjust to the Less Comfortable Side of Canadian Cities
Canada has a beautiful international image.
Mountains.
Lakes.
Clean streets.
Polite people.
That image is not fake.
It is simply incomplete.
I was surprised by some things I encountered in urban areas too.
Visible homelessness.
People clearly struggling with addiction or mental health.
The smell of cannabis in places where I was not used to encountering it.
Neighborhoods that could feel completely different only a few streets apart.
Those experiences were sometimes uncomfortable, particularly after becoming a parent.
But they also forced me to stop treating countries like advertisements.
Every society has problems.
The problems are simply different.
A country can offer your family many good things and still have serious problems it has not solved.
Both can be true at the same time.
The Moment Canada Started Feeling Like Home
I cannot point to one exact day when my attitude changed.
There was no dramatic movie scene where I looked at a mountain and suddenly became emotionally Canadian.
It happened slowly.
I knew where to shop.
I understood more of the systems.
I stopped feeling nervous about every unfamiliar task.
I started creating routines.
I made memories.
The places that once looked foreign began to carry pieces of my own life.
And somewhere in that process, I stopped constantly asking how Canada compared with Korea.
I simply started living.
That may have been the real turning point.
Three Things I Would Tell Someone Newly Settling in Canada
1. Do Not Judge Everything During Your Hardest Adjustment Period
The first months—or even years—can distort your perspective.
Loneliness, pregnancy, parenting stress, language barriers, unfamiliar systems, or financial pressure can make every inconvenience feel bigger.
Give yourself enough time to see ordinary life, not just immigration stress.
2. Keep Comparing, but Compare Fairly
Comparison is unavoidable.
I still compare Korea and Canada.
But now I try to compare the whole picture.
Korean convenience comes with one lifestyle.
Canadian space and slower pace come with another.
Every advantage usually lives inside a larger system with its own trade-offs.
3. Let Your Definition of “Better” Change
Before having a child, speed and convenience mattered enormously to me.
After becoming a mother, other things moved higher on the list.
A park nearby.
Being able to take my child out comfortably.
A school culture that leaves room for personality.
A little more breathing space.
The things that make a country feel good to live in can change depending on the stage of life you are in.
What Raising My Son Here Has Made Me Realize
When I think about my child now, I feel more certain than I did when I first arrived.
Canada will not give him a perfect childhood.
No country can.
He will have challenges here that I did not have in Korea.
He will probably also miss advantages that Korean children have.
But when I look at the space he has to play, the multicultural environment around him, the way young children are encouraged to develop socially as well as academically, and the ordinary freedom families can have outdoors, I often think:
This may actually be a very good place for him to grow up.
That does not mean I abandon the Korean parts of how I want to raise him.
Quite the opposite.
I want to give him some of both.
The discipline and effort I learned growing up.
The openness and independence I have learned to appreciate here.
Maybe that combination will become one of the best things immigration gives our family.
Final Thoughts: Canada Became More Beautiful After It Stopped Being Perfect 💛
Living in Canada feels very different to me today than it did when I first arrived.
In the beginning, I looked for differences.
Then I looked for problems.
Eventually, I started noticing what was quietly making my everyday life better.
Not everything here is faster.
Not everything is easier.
Not every system makes sense to me.
And Canada certainly is not a perfect country.
But it has given me something I did not expect.
A different idea of what a good life can look like.
Less rushing in some areas.
More space in others.
A broader view of people and cultures.
A different perspective on childhood.
And the realization that home does not have to replace the place you came from.
Sometimes a new country becomes home when you stop demanding that it behave like your old one.
I still love many things about Korea.
I still miss Busan.
And yes, there are days when I would happily import Korean speed and convenience directly into Canada.
But after adapting, raising my child, and building a real life here, I no longer feel that I have to choose which country wins.
I can appreciate what shaped me in Korea while also feeling proud of the life I am building here.
Canada did not become perfect.
It became mine. 🍁
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